USA > Iowa > Scott County > History of Scott County, Iowa > Part 57
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In 1878 " Modern Phases of Skepticism " was issued. Though not having as large a sale as the other works by the same author, it has been well received by the press and people.
"Rum, Ruin and the Remedy " first appeared in 1879. It has run through two or three editions. A local writer says of him in this connection: "Mr. Dungan has a wide range of practical knowledge on the temperance question. He has lectured, written and debated on the subject for 15 years, and perhaps in point of reading and critical thought on the subject is not inferior to any man in the nation." It disensses the subject of temperance briefly and pointedly; license, prohibition, the physical, pecuniary and moral phase of intemperance, and, in fact, every vital topie per- taining to the liquor traffic.
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Among other of the smaller works of Mr. Dungan are the "Dun- gan-Jameson Debate," "Modern Revivalists," "Ingersoll's Mis- takes about Moses," "Our Place and Mission," and "What Shall We Do?"
MISS MARY E. MEAD.
Miss Mead is a daughter of Rev. E. Mead, and has spent almost her entire life in the county. She has contributed much to the periodicals of the day. The following are selections from her pen :
TIME.
Oh solemn stream of time, Whose waters panse not in their eeaseless flow ; In every age and elime, 'Whelming alike our happiness and woe;
If once a voice was lent, How many a seeret might thy waves reveal,
How many a strange event ! How many a long forgotten page unseal !
Since first the stars of morn Ponred forth a song to greet the finished earth,
How oft thy waves have borne The wail of sorrow or the voice of mirth !
As in the vanished past, So in the coming years thy course shall be;
And centuries flee as fast, To the dark ocean of eternity.
E'en now another year, With wintry snow among its white loeks strown,
· Reposes on its bier, Waiting to join the mighty ages flown.
What record doth it bear ? What word of kindness to the wretehed given ?
What spirit's contrite prayer, When earthly hopes like summer clouds are riven ?
Full many a day hath fled, And many a joy awaking with the day,
The same brief course hath sped, And shrunk at eve, like Jonah's gonrd, away.
Call not the moments back, But with a thoughtful eye their flight review ; And, glancing o'er life's track, Go forth to battle with its ills anew.
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The stars will brightly shine, The summer smile as sweetly as before, And Jnne her roses twine, When we can view their blushing tints no more.
But when we lay aside This feeble, sickly tenement of clay, And, freed and purified, Soar to the regions of eternal day ;
What recks it, that our name May be forgotten in the haunts of old, And no loud voice of fame Ring through the buried arches, dark and cold.
Thy steps, O Time ! are low, And steal upon us ere we are aware, Till shining threads of snow Are thickly clustered mid the raven hair.
Our fathers, where are they ? At rest, where no dark dreams of care invade,
And daylight's feeble ray Comes like a captive struggling through the shade.
Ere many a New Year's sun, Its chariot, through the Eastern sky, shall guide,
Our earthly labors done, We too shall slumber sweetly by their side.
Oh! not by months and years, Nor freqnent change of darkness and of light,
Nor yet by hopes and fears, Measure our path, or mark Time's rapid flight.
But let each kindly thought, Each generous action as we onward haste, Each hour, with duty fraught, Gleam forth, a waymark on life's trackless waste.
MARCH.
[Written for the Gazette.]
These days of earth's awakening, these fresh pure days how blest, Ere bursts the first pale bud of spring, or wild bird finds her nest. No more oppressed with weight of snow the naked forest grieves, The moss is springing green below the budded osier leaves. Come forth, oh gentle train of flowers, children of wood and wild, Last night the warm clouds wept in showers, this morn the sunshine smiled. There's a wild flower near my dwelling, and I count its fragrance dear, . For its tiny buds are swelling, the earliest of the year.
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HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.
When the autumn winds were sighing, and the withered leaves fell fast, Then I feared iny blossom's dying, and I hid it from the blast. But it feels the Spring's awaking, and its tiny blade has ris'n, Till the chilly earth forsaking it has burst beyond its pris'n.
Oh, soul that long hath slumbered in life's still and starless night,
Lo ! the winter hoursare numbered, wake and God shall give thee light.
ARTISTS.
For many years Davenport and vicinity was visited by artists for the purpose of sketching the beautiful scenery along the river, the finest and mnost pieturesque to be seen along the Upper Mis- sissippi. The first to stop in Davenport for a great length of time was John Casper Wild. From " Davenport, Past, and Present," the following is taken:
Among the strangers from St. Louis who visited Davenport in the spring of 1845 was John Casper Wild, a gentleman of consid- erable reputation as a landscape and potrait painter, and lithog- raphist. He was a tall, spare man of about 40 years, with long raven black hair, whiskers and moustache, and restless brown eyes. He had, at times, a worn and haggard look, the result, doubtless, of ill health and a life-long battle with the world for the bare means of subsistence. He was uncommunicative as to his own life but it is an impression of the writer's that he was born in poverty, reared among the trials of indigence, from which, unaided, he sought to emerge, and in his maturity, a good artist but poor finan- cier, so that his history was a continned struggle. It is but little wonder, then, that through the clouds which so constantly surround him he could see but little sunshine. On his arrival here, he was totally dependent upon his talent. He soon commenced work, and prodneed a painting of Davenport and Rock Island, as one pict- nre. From this a limited number of beautifully colored lithograph copies were taken, for those who would buy. Alas ! poor Wild- the pictures which now would bring their weight in gold. had then a dull and weary sale. This view was not only faithful in its de- tails, and beautiful as a picture, but it proved Mr. Wild an artist of high talent.
It is worthy of mention that the artist lithographed his own picture on stone, and made and colored the impressions himself. It has been remarked that so fine a specimen of lithographing eannot now be done in the metrópolis of the country.
Mr. Wild afterward commenced a second painting of Davenport viewed from another point, but it was never finished. The same summer he made paintings from which lithographie copies were
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HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.
taken, of Dubuque, Galena, Muscatine and Moline. All these sketches were distinguished for their correctness and beauty. He worked rapidly bnt well, and a practical knowledge of lithography was nseful in securing correct copies of his works. The writer of this accompanied Mr. Wild on a trip to the Falls of St. Anthony in 1846, in which excursion he made a number of small sketches, but they were never produced on canvas. The painting of Dav- enport and Rock Island truly represents the young cities as they slept in 1845 upon the green banks of the great river, before the rushing winds and waves of progress had broken their slumbers. There are but few copies of this painting now in the possession of our citizens, and it is needless to say that the lapse of time and the intervening wonderful changes in the aspect of our city render these pictures invaluable to their owners.
In 1846 Mr. Wild, who continued residing in Davenport, painted a faney sketch, of which it may be right to make a particular note, as it was the nearest approach to an artistical smile of which Mr. Wild was ever known to be guilty. He had neither humor of his own, nor an appreciation of humor in others. IIe looked tragedy, thought tragedy, and his conversation ontside of business and art was never much more cheerful than tragedy. This little oil sketch represented three notable characters of the village, each of whom, at that time, was personally known toalmost every man, woman and child in the place. They were collected at the well-remembered ferry-house, and near the equally well-remem- bered old bell-post. The bell there suspended was then furiously jin- gled, and often with disagreeable pertinacity, by those who wished to eall the old ferryman, Mr. John Wilson, from the opposite side. The ringer was generally considered under personal obligation to stand to his post some time, in company with his horse and vehicle, if he had any to eross over, so that the ferryman might with proper de- liberation determine whether the skiff or horse ferry-boat were re- quired by the nature of the cargo. The large person of Mr. Le Claire sits in a buggy, to which is attached the notable old white horse that used to drag his master about the place. Close by stands Mr. Gilbert Mckown, whose store was on Front street, a few steps dis- tant, but whose burly figure and good humored face, seen on any street, seemed a part and parcel of the town, and directly identified with its corporate existence. The third figure is Sam Fisher, as he was familiarly called by every acquaintance. He then lived in the house now owned and occupied by Mr. George L. Davenport,
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HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.
at the corner of Brady and Third streets. Sam. Fisher was the best fisher in the town, a good story-teller, and had a most marvelous memory of past times and incidents, facts and dates, which, united to some peenliar eccentricities of character exclusively and honestly his own, made him a conspicuous character. One of his smaller eccen- tricities is shown in the picture. He is standing with his pants drawn up to the top of one boot, and down to the sole of the other, using a favorite gesture, and evidently doing the talking, of course. These three persons are now alive, and two of them continue resi - dents of Davenport. The picture is in the possession of Hon. G. C. R. Mitchell, who, by the way, ought to have figured in the paint- ing.
Mr. Wild was a native of Zurich, Switzerland; he went to Paris when young, where he resided] for 15 years, and then emigrated to the United States. IIe lived (several years in Philadelphia, where he finished some views for Atkinson's Casket, a panorama of Philadelphia, and a view of Napoleon's marshals on horse-back. In the spring of 1841, he went to St. Louis, and remained there till he removed here. At St. Louis he commenced a periodical called "The Valley of the Mississippi, Illustrated"-edited by Louis Faulk Thomas, the views by Mr. Wild. Only 10 numbers were issued. Mr. Wild died in Davenport, in the year 1846. When siek, he was kindly taken to the residence of Mrs. Webb, now oc- cupied by Mr. Henry, where he received the attentions of a son during the long illness which preceded his death. While thins lying on his death-bed, the home of his boyhood seemed a beanti- ful pieture before his eyes, and he expressed a longing desire to die at Zurich. This was not granted him, but kind hands softened the last shadowy pencilings of his life, and laid him gently among the summer flowers.
Among others who figured at an early day as painters were R. Wright, Mrs. Codding and Mr. Wolfe.
In the past decade much interest has seemed to be manifested among many of the citizens of Davenport in artistic work, and at an exhibition held at the Academy of Science in February 1882, a collection of 255 paintings and drawings were exhibited. Among the number were some fine specimens which attracted much attention and were highly praised. Those contributing on this occasion were Mrs. E. Burrows, Charles H. Hubbell, Miss Lida Roff, Miss Anna M. Baird, Mrs. E. E. Cook, Miss Mary Roff, Miss F. M. Hazen, Mrs. W. F. Peck, Miss Bianca
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HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.
Wheeler, Miss Matie Lane, Mrs. H. M. Martin, H. L. Bottom, Miss Bessie Van Patten, Miss Allie Bryant, Mrs. B. Wilcox, Miss Josie Parker, Mrs. E. Peck, Miss Sadie Bryant, Miss Anna M. Barr, Mrs. H. C. Wales, Miss Sarah French, Miss Lizzie Gil- lette, Miss Anna Williams, Miss Ada Wright, Miss Mary Fulton, Mrs. Frank Richardson, Mrs. Jennie Lane, Miss Fejervary, Miss Ury, Mrs. Agnes Haase, Miss Lizzie Davis, Mrs. R. P. Moore, Miss Cora M. Allen, Miss Jennie Warriner, W. Otto Gronen, Miss Lucy Mitchell, Miss Jessie Young, Miss Tillie Lambach, Henry Lambach, Miss Mary Kayser, William Fiske, Thomas Brockett, Miss Lucy Whitaker, Mrs. N. C. Martin, A. Hageboeck, Mrs. E. S. Crossett, L. Smith, Miss Celeste Fejervary, Mrs. H. E. HIard, W. W. Hathaway, Miss Louise Ells, Mrs. F. II .. Hancock, Mrs. Kircher, Miss Lucy Sudlow, Miss Lulu Farrand, W. W. Hathaway, F. H. Oelting, Miss Cora M. Allen, S. A. D. Hahn, Angust Hageboeck, J. W. Ross, George Knorr, Miss Millie Des- saint, Arthur Chandler and Miss Helen Ebi.
CHAPTER XVII.
MEDICAL.
One of the most honorable of all the professions is that of medi- cine. The man who risks his own life to save that of others is deserving of great eredit. As an introductory to this chapter, the following medical reminiseences of Dr. E. S. Barrows, the oldest practitioner in the State, is here given :
"In compliance with your request as the first and oldest physician of Scott Co., Iowa, I will proceed to say something of the medical profession, from the early part of 1836 to an indefinite period, trav- eling toward 1860. If I say too much relating to self, it will be from a matter of necessity, for I alone, the first year and a half, represented the profession west of the Mississippi for 100 miles north and south, and 3,000 mile's west. Therefore be it observed, I should not have anything to talk about but terri- tory, without people, or doctors, and nothing at all, leaving out myself, as one person, answering to make up my quota of the social aggregate forming the early history of that domain now enclosed by lines, giving bounds to Scott County.
" Whoever essays to narrate past events of the world will find that no nation can be found which was so rude that it was neither blessed nor cursed, as the case might be, with a profession, propos- ing to deal with the ailings of the body, originally emanating di- rectly from that other class of pretenders who assume to care more particularly for ailments of the soul. All through the course of human destiny both professions seem to have formed an essential element of the cultivated and the uncultivated, the civilized and the uncivilized, going to make up the human aggregate. Health and duration of life may be considered the result of intelligent action, and as there is a general desire to preserve the one and prolong the other beyond the accidents of time and place, it seems but reason- able that the early settlers of Scott County should have encouraged a profession which assumes to give the community the benefits of the accumulated medical skill of all the preceding ages. And who should have been the first to demonstrate the fact that such wisdom was at hand, and ready for business ?
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HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.
" With becoming modesty (if not becoming, it is at least con- sistent with the pretentions of that class of professional men who deal mostly with the hidden secrets of human ills), that first doc. tor, the first between Dubuque and Burlington, located at Rock- ingham early in 1836, is the writer of this article.
"In the autumn of 1836, the first physician who drew a lancet on a prostrate patient was located at Rockingham, and the patient was Antoine Le Claire, of Davenport, who was seriously ill with inflammatory rheumatism. His physician was Dr. Bardwell, of Stephenson, now Rock Island, a reputable physician and politician from Indiana, who subsequently located and successfully pursued the practice of medicine in the northeast corner of Buffalo town- ship. After two years' residence he sought more room and a bet- ter field for work, at Marion, Lynn Co., Iowa, where, after a few years, he died lamented. I was called in council with Dr. Bardwell, Nov. 15, 1836, and hastened to Mr. Le Claire's resi- dence, located where the freight depot now stands. Found the Dr. present waiting a little impatiently, and received a formal introduc- tion. Dr. Bardwell expressed a desire to proceed to business, for he had engagements elsewhere, ' not however, professional,' he said 'as you may see by these articles' [simultaneously raising with each hand a light shoe from both side pockets of his coat]; 'there is go- ing to be a dance to-night, and I have the honor of being a mana- ger.'
"The engagement referred to was a formal celebration of the opening of the first hotel which Davenport was ever favored with, or perhaps that other word, cursed, would be as appropriate, since the locality soon became known as 'Brimstone-Corner.' Old set- tlers whose dates go back to that period, when that name is men- tioned do not become confused as to the whereabouts of the local- ity. If the mind of a patriot of the Missouri war loses its serenity when he communes with himself, and perhaps fights over the battles of that day, when the first and last drill of the Scott County volunteers paraded on the commons, between the new ho- tel and the river, the glory achieved then and there will fade into a conviction that this was a new country, and the less said by way of apology for the peculiar manner by which we formed new friend- ships out of very raw material the better it will be, even for 'Brimstone-Corner.' The building is occupied at present as Staf. fen's headquarters for lime, cement, sewer pipe, etc.
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"To return to the subject of my first patient, Dr. Bardwell asked me to give Mr. Le Claire my attention, by a system of prognosis best known to the trade. To quote his language, ' I have been ex- amining him for about a week, and have come to the conchision that it is a plain case of abdominal dropsy, and, thinking it expe- dient to be in time, I have brought along my box of instruments, with the intent of relieving him of a gallon or two of water by tapping.' I proceeded to the examination of the case and asked if I might see Mrs. Le Claire. She came into the room and gave me the history of the case. Then the council commenced, by my say. ing, to my mind it was an unmistakable case of inflammatory rheu- matism, and the tapping had better be done in the arm. The difference of opinion so far as related in the diagnosis did not seem to create any surprise, but my suggestion of bleeding astonished greatly. He asked if I was candid in my view of the subject. ' Most certainly I am,' was my reply. Dr. Bardwell then spoke thusly: ' Mr. Le Claire, here are two doctors, one may be taken and the other left, which will you have?" Mr. Le Claire's reply was, ' Dr. Burrows may bleed me." I did bleed him, and Dr. Bardwell was kind enough to hold the bowl, and then hurried off to the ball. From that day forward to the day of his death, 26 years later, the patient was mine.
"I made 12 visits, in as many days. The sequel was most sat- isfactory, for within 10 days from my last visit, Mr. Le Claire rode on horseback from Davenport to Rockingham, and withont ask- ing for my bill, handed me a handful of silver, interspersed with gold pieces, saying, ' I will pay you the balance some other time,' then bade me good-bye, for he had not dismounted, and rode off.
" The sum given me was $150. IIe did pay the balance, besides contributing annual payments for small service. On my removal to Davenport, in the spring of 1843, he presented me with a deed of out lot No. 31, then called four-acre lots, saying to me: ' If you don't want that lot, sell it; I felt that I had never paid you for your services.' I attempted an acknowledgment, but he said, ' Don't say anything, for I owed it to you.' I did sell the lot subsequently, for $1,000. It was the one upon which Sargent's row is built. The population on Jan. 1, 1837, of the domain now known as Scott County was below 200, after which immigra- tion set in with greater rapidity.
" During this summer, Dr. A. C. Donaldson, from Wilkesbarre. Penn., located in Davenport as the first resident physician. He was well qualified for a successful practice of the profession; was
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eminenty upright in thought and act, and deserved a better reeom- pense for his medieal ability and his moral worth than the world afforded him. He remained in Davenport but two years, or perhaps three, removed to St. Louis, and subsequently to Cali- fornia, where death overtook him. *
" During the summer and autumn of 1837 a few cases of bilious remitting fever occurred, but yielded readily to treatment. The winter following, several cases of bilious pneumonia demanded prompt attendance and special vigilance in the observance of changes indieative of greater danger. These were the diseases, and the principal ones, which called for medical help up to the year 1849. Since that year, or from that period, the summer and autumnal fevers ceased to be epidemieal, and pneumonia became less frequent. It may be well to mention here that the fevers of 1849, after the third or fourth day, assumed a typhoid character, the re- mission hardly observable, and the nervous depression occasioning great anxiety.
" Old citizens well remember that year, for in it occurred the death of Mr. David Hoge and Miss Sophia Fisher.
" I think it was Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia,-a great name up to about 1825,-who said the lancet was a 'sheet-anchor' in all inflammatory diseases. So it might have been said of quinine, as used in remittent and intermittent fevers, in both the Mississippi and Missouri valleys from 1830 up to 1850. During that period 120,000 square miles west of the Mississippi and north of St. Louis became populated, and all of it more or less malarions. In some of these years the demand for quinine was so great that the supply in the American market became exhausted. 'Sapping- ton's pills' were indirectly the power which worked steamboats up the river from 1835 to 1843. They were, verily, the ' sheet-anchor' not only aboard boats, but in many households. Dr. Sappington was a regular allopathic physician of considerable ability, residing up the Missouri River, who thought it would be a benefaction to the new civilization of the West to prepare quinine, ready to be taken, in the form of pills. The boxes contained four dozen each, and the pills two grains each. The direction on the box was to take from two to twenty, as the urgency of the case seemed to require, without reference to the stage of the paroxysm.
" Dr. Thos. J. Saunders, recognized by the profession as a schol- arly M. D., graduated at the Pennsylvania University, in 1843, 10 please his father. The law was his choice as a profession ; but as that
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did not accord with the moral sentiments of a highly worthy disci- ple of George Fox, he acceded to his father's wishes and became an M. D., practiced medicine for a while in New Jersey, and trav- eled for a time in Europe. After his return, in connection with his practice in New Jersey, was prominently engaged as a poli- tician, serving several terms as secretary of the Senate.
" In 1855 Dr. Saunders came to Davenport, and practiced his pro- fession successfully. His ability for public service has for the last 20 years kept him engaged in its employ. He was secretary of the Constitutional Convention of 1857; was member of the Senate from Scott County; served four years as paymaster in the army which handled the Rebellion.
" For the last few years has been engaged for the war department in assessing damages, or taking evidence to that effeet, caused by Sherman's army in East Tennessee. But with all these diversities of engagements he has never ceased to entertain a respect, together with an interest kept up, for the medical profession.
" Dr. E. Fountain and Dr. J. M. Adler came to Davenport in 1854, from Aspinwall, on the Isthmus, where they had been en- gaged for two or three years as surgeons of the Panama Railroad Company.
" Dr. Fountain was from West Chester Co., New York, a grad- uate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1851; was most estimable for his many moral virtues and fully com- petent, and master of his profession for his term of experience. In 1861 he became infatuated with the supposed medicinal virtues of an article called chlorate of potash, which he claimed to have used with great success, and to confirm his own conscientious opinions of its action on the system experimented upon himself rather than his patients, took an over-dose on March 27, and died from its ef- feets within 48 hours.
Dr. Adler as partner of Dr. Fountain, continued the practice until 1865, then removed to Philadelphia, where he continues at the present in a large and successful practice.
" Dr. C. C. Parry, from Sandy Hill, N. Y. (See Scott County Medical Society), came in 1852 or '53, practiced for a few years, then devoted his attention wholly to a scientific branch of the pro- fession which he has made a specialty, and at present is engaged in exploring Southern California. As a botanist Dr. Parry possesses a celebrity to which he is worthily entitled, and second to very few.
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